1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of this invention relate generally to microblogging and, more particularly, to special purpose machines, systems, methods and computer instructions for associating microposts with geographic locations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Microblog services provide a broadcast medium that enables users to exchange small elements of content in the form of microposts that include short sentences, messages, video links, or the like. For example, services, such as Twitter, enable users to broadcast short messages called “Tweets” (e.g., up to 140 characters in length) to other users that have expressed an interest in receiving content generated by the user. As a further example, social networking sites, such as Google+, allow users to provide short status updates that are published for viewing by other users on the social network.
In some instances, users include certain tokens in their microposts. Such tokens may include words, phrases, symbols or the like that are intended to associate the micropost with a given thing (e.g., an entity, location, event, subject, or the like). For example, a micropost may include a hashtag (denoted by a “#” followed by keyword or phrase) that is associated with a given entity, location, event, or the like. A user may, for example, include the hashtag “#qpr” within a micropost to associate the micropost with the Queens Park Rangers soccer team. Such tokens may enable simplified categorizing of microposts. For example, a user may simply click a hashtag of a micropost to access other microposts that include the same hashtag.
Although microblog services provide for the exchange of short elements of information, they may only provide a limited amount of information about users, locations, events or the like associated with the microposts. For example, although a user may be able to quickly access a large number of microposts about an event by simply clicking on a hashtag, they may not be able to decipher a location of the event based on the content of the microposts. Moreover, users generating microposts may not be aware of tokens that are related to their microposts and, thus may not make use of them. As a result, a user's micropost may not be categorized with related microposts due to the fact it does not contain a corresponding token.